Angle of Attack

by Lee Baldwin

  Now she looks at me as though I’m something she needs to scrape off her pointy-toed boots. “You are joking, of course. Cicero.”

  Dammit. Cicero is Montana-speak for really pissed at me. But like a fool, I plunge ahead.

  “No, this is legit.”

  “You are referring to...”

  “Look Montana, I was in jail for three weeks before I was accused of possession with intent to distribute. My public defender was an amateur. How did I get convicted for possession when the cops found nothing at my house?”

  She’s not looking disgusted anymore, merely bored and faintly entertained. She knows I don’t have the financial clout to hire an attorney to take on the State of California. For the moment at least, she is right.

  “Take it up with your legal counsel. I have work to do.”

  Oh sure. Now she has some stock interview questions to put me through. I am sure she’ll call it ‘processing’ in her report.

  “What’s your employment status?”

  “You know I’m working. I have a schedule at the gliderport every week. It’s kind of random, depends on when students book to fly. I’ve had that job more than ten years, except for my paid vacation as guest of the state. Also I have an aircraft parts business that I run from my house. It’s profitable. So I do have obligations. But I’ll be available when you want to talk. By phone sometimes if that’s more convenient?”

  “Take a card,” she says, tilting her a head at the little card tray on the edge of her desk. “No wait not that one.” She reaches her purse from a bottom desk drawer and hands over a different card. Our fingers brush as I take it, sending me a tiny zap of woman voltage. Her surprised blink tells me she gets it too. She remembers.

  “Living situation?”

  “Rent a house in Felton, address is in my file.”

  “Housemates, girlfriends? Boyfriends?” She says the last word with a mini-leer, somewhere between insult and private joke. You’re so witty, Montana. She damn well knows I’m not the boy-boy type.

  “I live alone.” What I won’t go into is, I am tapering off on social contact leading to the day I can drop out of sight where dolts like you can’t find me.

  “Marriages, divorces, any kids?”

  “None of the above.”

  “What is your evening life? What do you do when you’re not at work?”

  My mind is saying, Wha-a-a-a-t the heck? Never heard that question in all my years in the system. I shrug, “You know for a parolee to be caught in a minor traffic stop it’s like a four alarm fire. Drinking away from my residence is therefore out, as is partying with people who do drugs. I stay home a lot, people visit, I keep to myself.”

  She seems to consider this for a minute, makes a notation on her laptop. “The report I got from Hollister Homicide,” she says, all official again, “seems quite complete. They’ve handed over formal decision until the NTSB concludes its investigation.” She looks back at her laptop. “I’m scheduling you in for next Wednesday at two o’clock.”

  I flip through my Commando. “Hold up. I’ve got two lessons that afternoon. It means about 600 bucks to the school and a couple hundred to me. Any way we can make that later, say five?”

  She looks again at her laptop. “Check in with me by phone at five o’clock next Wednesday. Use the office number for that.” I haven’t looked at her card yet but my guess is that her personal cell is on it. Hah. Maybe she is thinking with her crotch again. Still.

  The first line of a rap tune emanates from her purse.

  “S’cuse,” she says, taking her phone out. When she picks up, a lovely smile transforms her face. And transports me back to a time I remember as damn special. She swivels away. I can’t see her over the chair’s high back. She’s talking quietly and giggling. Uses a cute name a couple times. Don’t know if that’s who she’s talking to or talking about. Montana never had any trouble getting the guys, her only problem was the kind of trouble the guys brought home. I wasn’t the worst bad boy she liked in school.

  I spend the time flipping through my phone looking at text messages. The twins are back from their Los Angeles run, which is good news, we need to get together. Message from a student who’s completed his pre-solo exam and wants to go over it with me.

  But all of sudden it hits me again what happened today. Roswell. Who in the flock is Roswell? Who is he and why would he want to kill me? I ransack my memory, players I knew in the slam, people I met in business. But nothing comes. Blank. As a murder attempt it’s an extreme way to off somebody. Unless it means something else. I think if I had done it, what would I be trying to accomplish? If I survived the parachute landing on rough terrain in fog, it would be an excellent way to break a tail. My mind spins out on the word tail. Montana.

  Hormones, shut up. I remember this babe far too damn well.

  While we’re waiting for her to get off her smoochy call, you might as well know a little about me. I was born in Manhattan Beach California 38 years ago. My name, Cicero Clay, has to be a spelling error. What I think happened is my mom wished I was going to be a girl and she liked the name Cecily. Anyway both my folks are dead, my dad in a highway crash before I left school, my mom of cancer five years after that. My brother is four years older and went away to the Navy. He is mentally unbalanced, and I’m only half joking. When he left the Navy, he dropped out of sight, no phone or utility accounts in his name, everything in his ex-wife’s name, he’s strictly under the radar. Don’t hear from him that often, he doesn’t want any connection between us that can be traced.

  What I look like in case you are taking notes or stalking me is I’m almost six feet, in good shape from mountain biking, blue work shirt I wear with sleeves rolled up, color that brings out my eyes, gray green to piercing blue. Wheat-colored hair that can grow out fast if I don’t get it cut once a week.

  I was arrested for supposedly dealing drugs four years ago. Yah I was connected with it but never touched or saw any product. It was so weird. I got away. But the cops showed up like magic at my crib. I did three years medium security at California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo, place they call the Country Club, and am now out under supervision. Good behavior. Ankle bracelet for the first couple months.

  I’ll finish my parole in less than seven months, which is why this Roswell incident is so damnably inconvenient. There I was all under the radar, now I am a fat juicy blip to them. I work teaching students to fly gliders, and buy and sell vintage airplane parts on the side. Plus a few other activities I don’t want any cops to know about.

  When Montana spins her chair around she’s dewy-eyed and shiny. She must really like someone. And I notice that inside I’m happy for her. She has a career, clothes, a guy. She seems okay.

  A knock comes to the door. It’s the clerk poking her head in to remind Montana about her next case. “One of yours is getting impatient. Salermo.” I was right about the name. It’s the dude I saw waiting outside.

  Montana stands up, all business, our meeting has ended. “Next Wednesday then by phone. Call me if anything changes. Meanwhile you are not to leave the county.”

  “Well, Hollister’s where I work, that’s in San Benito County. Right here we’re in Santa Clara County, plus which I live in Santa Cruz County. Which one am I not leave?”

  Now she looks mainly insulted. “You know what I mean, Cicero,” she says tersely, dismissing this lowlife with a distracted wave, “Keep yourself strictly between home and work.” I leave her office without another word.

  So she’s pissed. As I recall she was frequently pissed at me. I allow a small sigh. Only seven more months of this up with which I have to put. As I start down the corridor I see her next appointment on the way in. Dude stares past me without recognition.

  Crossing the parking lot it’s nearly dark, the air is cooling. After six pm. Just grand, I’m in time for my most un-favorite sport, crush hour heading out Highway 17 for the coast. It’s gonna take me forever to get home.

  Chapter 3

&nb
sp; An Uninvited Guest

  SO I MAKE THE DRIVE out Highway 17 palatable by killing an hour in the Los Gatos Brew Pub, and it’s well after dark when I park the El Camino under trees beside my hacienda, an overgrown place in a redwood grove at the end of a dirt road in the Santa Cruz hills. Felton. Yah, sure, rhymes with felon. And okay, so I don’t actually live in Santa Cruz, you got me.

  I like that the old two-story bunkhouse I rent from the Grant kids stands well above the main house down by the road. I especially like the old swimming pool farther up the hill, hidden in the trees. Behind the bunkhouse, miles of wooded slopes and redwoods. And bike trails, where I spend as much time as my schedule allows.

  The Grant kids don’t care what I do with the place, so long’s I don’t burn it down, a sore subject around here. In a few years they will likely sell it off to some developer. It’s all part of the Old California, destined for better or worse to become the New. I plan to be long gone before then.

  I’m walking up the wooden porch stairs in pitch dark, telling myself for the thousandth time to get a sensor light that works, when I trip on something heavy draped over the steps. Someone is lying there, too dark to see. Flopped out on its back, head resting a couple steps down. I can’t tell who it is. I poke it with my foot and nothing happens. Dammit! After all the cops I’ve seen today, here’s another load of shit.

  How insensitive of me! Here this poor dude lies dead at my feet and all I have for him is irritation at how he’s about to mess up my day.

  I lean close to the guy’s head and listen. No breathing I can hear. Hackles on my neck stand up, I’m not going in the house. Whoever slugged this guy could be waiting. And I’m definitely not calling the cops. Yet. Standing by my car I think hard. I need an alibi. I take out my cell phone. Who can I call, to make like we discovered this together? Not the twins. Fresh from the swimming pool, they’ll smell like pot. Wait. Don’t want to call from here anyway, the cell towers will have my location. Back into the El Camino and down the road as quiet as possible. I curse having to use the headlights driving by the Grant’s house but fortunately their place is still dark.

  Several miles down Highway 9 I pull into a tree-lined turnout. Still ransacking my brain for a plausible witness, I dig out Montana’s card. At first it seems stupid, but then it becomes the most reasonable choice. She’ll hate it but she’s the only person who can help me in this situation. When she picks up she sounds out of breath.

  “Who is this?”

  “Montana! Don’t hang up! It’s Clay.”

  “What! Who?” I get a momentary impression of her world tilting on its axis.

  “Montana don’t hang up. I need your advice. Want to be sure I don’t get a violation.” I’m trying to talk in code. Can’t say there’s this dead guy on my porch and I need you for an alibi, so I improvise. I’m still expecting her to hang up any second saying this is improper contact, but she listens and it seems that she gets it. She’s marginally over her shock at hearing my name but her talk is disjointed, still breathless. Finally she tells me to meet her at a bike trail in San Jose. Oh hooray, I get to drive back over the hill. That alibi is plausible enough, my beater trail bike is in the El Camino. But I stop her. There’s a better idea. I have to show her. She has to be here.

  “You need to come here. Meet me outside the Chinese place in Felton.” I click off to show I mean it. Then there is nothing to do but wait. Chinese place. Reminds me I’m growling hungry. I turn back toward Felton and park down the main drag, call Chopstix and order takeout for two. Waiting a block away, I dig the burner phone out from under the dash, dial a number from memory.

  “Hey. We going fishing?”

  On the other end, I imagine a guy older than me, in a clapped-out farmhouse 100 miles from here. Broad fields, flat for miles around, deserted wide dirt roads. He’s probably wearing a beard. Cool guy. My brother Wade.

  “Hey yourself,” Wade says. There is a pause. Then, “I’m still waiting for your friend to show up with the fishing tackle.”

  It’s always some phony topic. Fishing gear, car parts, telephoto lenses... just in case someone is listening we gotta sound all normal.

  “He’s not there yet?” We’re counting on Wade’s Navy pilot, Pete.

  “Well the guy lives in his own universe. But he’ll be here. Then we can take off for the Sierra. Talked to him a couple days ago. Was trying to scrape some cash together.”

  “Yah. What you said before. Is he for sure reliable, or should I bring my own?”

  A wry chuckle from the other end. “He can be a major trickster. But he has the gear you were asking about. The fishing will be good.”

  “K, I’ll call ya.”

  I punch off. There’s always lots more I’d like to say to my big brother. We’ve been apart a long time. Family shit. Plus which, a major eccentricity of his keeps us at a distance. Can’t use his real name anymore. We don’t use names on the phone. But if our plans work out, I’ll be living in the same world as my disappeared brother before long. To make that work, we need someone who can fly a vintage airplane.

  So I’m sitting in my car chomping on a spring roll when a Jeep wagon goes by slow toward the restaurant and parks. Wow, she made good time over 17. I start up and turn away toward the intersection. At the light, I call her.

  “I see you at the restaurant. Turn around and take a left at the light. I’ll be going slow up the hill in a blue El Camino. Follow me.”

  There is a long pause. “You better have a real good reason for this shit.” Her voice sounds normal now, composed, icy. Angry? So what, I don’t care. I have a very good reason. A few minutes later headlights are behind me and we’re turning up my road. The main house is still dark, to my great relief. Grant kids gotta be away.

  In the clearing by the bunkhouse we get out of our cars. She pulls out a small flashlight, shines it around and toward the house but we can’t see the porch from here. Her light trembles.

  “So,” she says, sounding completely normal. “Exactly WTF is up?”

  “I get home tonight, and there is a person lying on my steps. Dead I think.”

  “Cripes. Did you touch anything?”

  “Nada. Left right away and called you. After what went down today I don’t need any more cops breathing down my neck. I needed someone to be with me when I find this.”

  “And you picked me for your alibi. My lucky day.” Then she says, “What have you been doing since you left my office?” Always practical, first she wants us to get our stories straight.

  I think a sec. “Nobody I know saw me. Sat in a pub. I drove home. Slow. Lotsa traffic, house down below was dark when I came in. Tripped on this guy, left right away, called you. Got takeout. This could get me arrested.”

  “Shit,” she says, scowling while she concentrates on something. “So the story is you and I were somewhere together. What have we supposedly been doing for the last two hours?” Her voice puts hard ice on supposedly.

  “We were talking in your car, old school friends, that sort of thing.” If it were truly like the old days, it would be something other than talking.

  “That will do. I haven’t seen anyone since I left work. So where is this guy?”

  I start for the house. As we approach, Montana’s flashlight reveals the dark shape on the steps. She lights up the face of the corpse, who already looks gray and stiff. Now I see a single neat round hole in the forehead. And blood. Which has dripped down, covering one plank step and starting for the next. I stare at the face in shock.

  “Holy shit, it’s Roswell.”

  Now this shakes me up. At first I am relieved, I’d been thinking it might be a friend from the neighborhood. But even as that passes, I can’t say any more for the moment. My brain is officially in overload. First the guy tries to kill me jumping out of my glider, now he shows up extinct at my effing crib. Was he here to finish the job? Knowing where I live means he knew too much about me, such as who I am, where I work, where I go. Who else knows? I’m starting to fee
l paranoid.

  “Who is Roswell?”

  “This is the guy jumped out of my glider today!”

  “What!” Montana looks at me hard. “You’re positive?”

  “Hundred percent. The gliderport people can identify him. Actually this is great in a way cuz it proves my story.” Meanwhile I’m thinking it also proves that Roswell had a second chute on him. Either he thought the first one might fail, or he anticipated I might dive on him if I got the glider back fast enough. Either way, he planned that attack in crisp detail. But what for?

  Montana pulls a dark gun from the holster inside her jacket. It reminds me that whoever did Roswell could still be around, after realizing his mistake and wanting to fix it. My hackles stand up.

  “Who do you know, Montana? Who’s the best person to call, instead of me just calling 911?” I’m thinking what’s the number for Corpse busters?

  She pulls out her phone. “Wolfe,” She says crisply. Not answering me, talking to her phone. In a few ticks she has someone on the call.

  “Hey it’s Harrison, Santa Clara County Parole. I just rolled up at a friend’s house here in Felton and we have a possible 187.” She listens a minute. “No we just drove up. Guy is on the front steps, GSW forehead. My friend tripped on him. We haven’t cleared the scene, too dark. Possible shooter still in the area.”

  They go back and forth like this for a minute, she sends her current GPS location, then clicks off.

  So now I reckon it’s OK to go in the house, if we step around the pooling blood. I switch on a few lights and start a fire in the woodstove. Montana is looking around at my officially bare existence. I take a couple Fat Tires from the fridge, pop them open and flop on the large beater sofa in the main room. With the Grant kids’ permission, I’d knocked out most of the walls on the ground floor. The space is large and open, with a square coffee table in the center surrounded by the sofa and a couple overstuffed chairs. Woodstove in a corner. Now, only the bathroom and my bedroom have walls and a door. Stairs to the second level, bathroom and bedrooms up there, don’t use them.